Joseph Priestley, Discoverer of Oxygen National Historic Chemical Landmark - American Chemical Society American Chemical Society Joseph Priestley, Discoverer of Oxygen Joseph Priestley and the Discovery of Oxygen International Historic Chemical Landmark Dedicated August 1, 1994, at the Joseph Priestley House in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, USA, and August 7, 2000, at Bowood House in Wiltshire, UK. Landmark Lesson Plan: Joseph Priestley, Discoverer of Oxygen When Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774, he answered age-old questions of why and how things burn. An Englishman by birth, Priestley was deeply involved in politics and religion, as well as science. When his vocal support for the American and French revolutions made remaining in his homeland dangerous, Priestley left England in 1794 and continued his work in America until his death. Contents “Joseph Priestley Discoverer of Oxygen” commemorative booklet produced by the National Historic Chemical Landmarks program of the American Chemical Society in 2004 (PDF).

About Joseph Priestley Some 2,500 years ago, the ancient Greeks identified air — along with earth, fire and water — as one of the four elemental components of creation. That notion may seem charmingly primitive now. But it made excellent sense at the time, and there was so little reason to dispute it that the idea persisted until the late 18th century. It might have endured even longer had it not been for a free-thinking English chemist and maverick theologian named Joseph Priestley. Priestley (1733-1804) was hugely productive in research and widely notorious in philosophy. He invented carbonated water and the rubber eraser, identified a dozen key chemical compounds, and wrote an important early paper about electricity. His unorthodox religious writings and his support for the American and French revolutions so enraged his countrymen that he was forced to flee England in 1794. He settled in Pennsylvania, where he continued his research until his death. The world recalls Priestley best as the man who discovered oxygen, the active ingredient in our planet's atmosphere.

In the process, he helped dethrone an idea that dominated science for 23 uninterrupted centuries: Few concepts "have laid firmer hold upon the mind," he wrote, than that air "is a simple elementary substance, indestructible and unalterable." In a series of experiments culminating in 1774, Priestley found that "air is not an elementary substance, but a composition," or mixture, of gases. Among them was the colorless and highly reactive gas he called "dephlogisticated air," to which the great French chemist Antoine Lavoisier would soon give the name "oxygen." It is hard to overstate the importance of Priestley's revelation. Scientists now recognize 92 naturally occurring elements-including nitrogen and oxygen, the main components of air. They comprise 78 and 21 percent of the atmosphere, respectively. Engraving of Joseph Priestley by Charles Turner, after a painting by Henry Fuseli. Courtesy The Edgar Fahs Smith Memorial Collection, The University of Pennsylvania Libraries. Understanding the Composition of Air In the mid-18th century, the concept of an element was still evolving.

Researchers had distinguished no more than two dozen or so elements, depending on who was doing the counting. It wasn't clear how air fit into that system. Nobody knew what it was, and researchers kept finding that it could be converted into such a variety of forms that they routinely spoke of different "airs." The principal method for altering the nature of air, early chemists learned, was to heat or burn some compound in it. The second half of the 1700s witnessed an explosion of interest in such gases. The steam engine was in the process of transforming civilization, and scientists of all types were fascinated with combustion and the role of air in it. British chemists were especially prolific. In 1754, Joseph Black identified what he called "fixed air" (now known to be carbon dioxide) because it could be returned, or fixed, into the sort of solids from which it was produced.

In 1766, a wealthy eccentric named Henry Cavendish produced the highly flammable substance Lavoisier would name hydrogen, from the Greek words for "water maker." Finally in 1772, Daniel Rutherford found that when he burned material in a bell jar, then absorbed all the "fixed" air by soaking it up with a substance called potash, a gas remained. Rutherford dubbed it "noxious air" because it asphyxiated mice placed in it. Today, we call it nitrogen. But none of those revelations alone tells the whole story. The next major discovery would come from a man whose early life gave no indication that he would become one of the greatest experimental chemists in history. Back to top Bubbling Beverages In 1767, Priestley was offered a ministry in Leeds, Englane, located near a brewery. This abundant and convenient source of "fixed air” — what we now know as carbon dioxide — from fermentation sparked his lifetime investigation into the chemistry of gases. He found a way to produce artificially what occurred naturally in beer and champagne: water containing the effervescence of carbon dioxide.

The method earned the Royal Society's coveted Copley Prize and was the precursor of the modern soft-drink industry. Oxygen and Other Discoveries in England Joseph Priestley was born in Yorkshire, the eldest son of a maker of wool cloth. His mother died after bearing six children in six years. Young Joseph was sent to live with his aunt, Sarah Priestley Keighley, until the age of 19. She often entertained Presbyterian clergy at her home, and Joseph gradually came to prefer their doctrines to the grimmer Calvinism of his father. Before long, he was encouraged to study for the ministry. And study, as it turned out, was something Joseph Priestley did very well. Aside from what he learned in the local schools, he taught himself Latin, Greek, French, Italian, German and a smattering of Middle Eastern languages, along with mathematics and philosophy. This preparation would have been ideal for study at Oxford or Cambridge, but as a Dissenter (someone who was not a member of the Church of England) Priestley was barred from England's great universities. So he enrolled at Daventry Academy, a celebrated school for Dissenters, and was exempted from a year of classes because of his achievements.

After graduation, he supported himself, as he would for the rest of his life, by teaching, tutoring and preaching. His first full-time teaching position was at the Dissenting Academy in Warrington. (Although obviously brilliant, original, outspoken and, by one report, of "a gay and airy disposition," Priestley had an unpleasant voice and a sort of stammer. That he made a living through lectures and sermons is further evidence of his extraordinary nature.) In 1762, he was ordained and married Mary Wilkinson, the daughter of a prominent iron-works owner. She was, he noted, "of an excellent understanding, much improved by reading, of great fortitude and strength of mind, and of a temper in the highest degree affectionate and generous; feeling strongly for others and little for herself." Priestley traveled regularly to London, and became acquainted with numerous men of science and independent thought, including an ingenious American named Benjamin Franklin, who became a lifelong friend. Franklin encouraged Priestley in his research, one result of which was The History and Present State of Electricity. For that work, and his growing reputation as an experimenter, Priestley was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1766.

The History book was too tough for a popular audience, and Priestley determined to write a more accessible one. But he could find no one to create the necessary illustrations. So, in typical fashion, he taught himself perspective drawing. Along the way, he made many mistakes, and discovered that India rubber would erase lead pencil lines — a fact he mentioned in the preface. By the age of 34, Priestley was a well-established and respected member of Britain's scientific community. He was still paying a price for his religious nonconformity, however. When the explorer Captain James Cook was preparing for his second voyage, Priestley was offered the position of science adviser. But the offer was rescinded under pressure from Anglican authorities who protested his theology, which was evolving into a strongly Unitarian position that denied the doctrine of the trinity. In retrospect, the Cook affair may have been all for the best. In 1773, the Earl of Shelburne asked Priestley to serve as a sort of intellectual companion, tutor for the earl's offspring, and librarian for his estate, Bowood House.

The position provided access to social and political circles Priestley could never have gained on his own, while leaving ample free time for the research that would earn him a permanent place in scientific history. He systematically analyzed the properties of different "airs" using the favored apparatus of the day: an inverted container on a raised platform that could capture the gases produced by various experiments below it. The container could also be placed in a pool of water or mercury, effectively sealing it, and a gas tested to see if it would sustain a flame or support life. In the course of these experiments, Priestley made an enormously important observation. A flame went out when placed in a jar in which a mouse would die due to lack of air. Putting a green plant in the jar and exposing it to sunlight would "refresh" the air, permitting a flame to burn and a mouse to breathe. Perhaps, Priestley wrote, "the injury which is continually done by such a large number of animals is, in part at least, repaired by the vegetable creation." Thus he observed that plants release oxygen into the air — the process known to us as photosynthesis. On August 1, 1774, he conducted his most famous experiment.

Using a 12-inch-wide glass "burning lens," he focused sunlight on a lump of reddish mercuric oxide in an inverted glass container placed in a pool of mercury. The gas emitted, he found, was "five or six times as good as common air." In succeeding tests, it caused a flame to burn intensely and kept a mouse alive about four times as long as a similar quantity of air. Priestley called his discovery "dephlogisticated air" on the theory that it supported combustion so well because it had no phlogiston in it, and hence could absorb the maximum amount during burning. (The year before, Swedish apothecary Carl Wilhelm Scheele isolated the same gas and observed a similar reaction. Scheele called his material "fire air." But his findings were not published until 1777.) Whatever the gas was called, its effects were remarkable. "The feeling of it in my lungs," Priestley wrote, "was not sensibly different from that of common air, but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury.

Hitherto only two mice and myself have had the privilege of breathing it." Back to top Phlogiston and Fire In the mid-18th century, the most pressing issue in chemistry and physics was to determine what exactly happens when something burns. The prevailing theory was that flammable materials contained a substance called “phlogiston” (from the Greek word for burn) that was released during combustion. The theory held that when a candle burned, for example, phlogiston was transferred from it to the surrounding air. When the air became saturated with phlogiston and could contain no more, the flame went out. Breathing, too, was a way to remove phlogiston from a body. A typical test for the presence of phlogiston was to place a mouse in a container and measure how long it lived. When the air in the container could accept no more phlogiston, the mouse would die. The 19th century scientist Antoine Lavoisier disproved the existence of phlogiston and helped to form the basis of modern chemistry using Joseph Priestley’s discovery of oxygen. Pneumatic trough and other equipment used by Joseph Priestley in his experiments on oxygen and other gases.

Reproduced from Joseph Priestley's book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, 1774-1786. Religion and Emigration to America As luck would have it, Lord Shelburne was setting off on a trip to the European continent and took Priestley along. In France, Priestley met Lavoisier and described his discovery. It turned out to be the clue Lavoisier needed to develop his theory of chemical reactions — the "revolution" in chemistry that would finally dispel the phlogiston theory. Burning substances, Lavoisier argued, did not give off phlogiston; they took on Priestley's gas, which Lavoisier called "oxygen" from the Greek word for acid-maker. By then, however, Priestley had returned to England, where he escalated his support for the American Revolution and for highly unorthodox religious views. Those positions were a source of embarrassment for Lord Shelburne. Priestley left his service in 1780, moving to Birmingham and taking a position as head of a liberal congregation called New Meeting.

His new location brought him into contact with numerous luminaries including Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles, the great architect of evolutionary theory. James Watt and Matthew Boulton — who were about to transform society with their steam engine — were there, as was Josiah Wedgwood, the famous potter, who supported Priestley's chemical experiments. Birmingham also boasted a distinguished scientific discussion group, the Lunar Society, which met on nights of a full moon so that the members could see their way home. Priestley's encouragement of the French Revolution, together with his increasingly controversial theology and attacks on the doctrine of the trinity, eventually became too notorious for safety. In 1791, an alcohol-fueled mob of royalists burned the New Meeting house, and then Priestley's home. The scientist and his family barely escaped. They fled to London, but eventually it proved no safer. Priestley's sons could not find work and emigrated to Pennsylvania, where they hoped to found a center for free-thinking Englishmen. Finally Joseph and Mary followed them, setting sail for America on April 8, 1794.

Priestley turned down the offer of a teaching position at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and instead built a house in the remote hamlet of Northumberland to be near his sons. The area was decidedly rustic. There Priestley continued his research, isolating carbon monoxide (which he called "heavy inflammable air") and founding the Unitarian Church in the United States. For the most part, he led a quiet and reflective life — especially after his friend Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1800. During his final trip to Philadelphia, he told the Philosophical Society that "having been obliged to leave a country which has been long distinguished by discoveries in science, I think myself happy by my reception in another which is following its example, and which already affords a prospect of its arriving at equal eminence." His words proved prophetic. A colloquium held on the centennial of Priestley's discovery of oxygen led to the founding of the American Chemical Society —today the world's largest scientific society — in 1876. On February 3, 1804, Priestley began an experiment, but found himself too weak to continue. He went to his bed in his library, never again to emerge.

On February 6, he summoned one of his sons and an assistant. He dictated some changes in a manuscript. When he was satisfied with the revisions, he said "That is right. I have now done." Minutes later he died painlessly, ending what Jefferson called "one of the few lives precious to mankind." Anti-Priestley cartoon reading "Doctor Phlogiston, The Priestley politician or the Political Priest!" Reproduced courtesy of the Library of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Portrait of Joseph Priestley (undated). Reproduced courtesy of the Library of the Royal Society of Chemistry. Landmark Designation and Acknowledgments Landmark Designation The American Chemical Society dedicated the Joseph Priestley House a National Historic Chemical Landmark on August 1, 1994. The plaque commemorating the event reads: Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) — Unitarian minister, teacher, author, natural philosopher, discoverer of oxygen, and friend of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson — supervised the construction of this house and laboratory from 1794 to 1798, then lived and worked here until his death in 1804.

His library of some 1,600 volumes and his chemical laboratory, where he first isolated carbon monoxide, were probably the best in the country at that time. As suggested by Edgar Fahs Smith in 1920, the Joseph Priestley House has become "a Mecca for all who would look back to the beginnings of chemical research" in America. The American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry dedicated the Discovery of Oxygen by Joseph Priestley an International Historic Chemical Landmark on August 7, 2000, in Wiltshire, UK. The plaque commemorating the event reads: Joseph Priestley (1733-1804) — Unitarian minister, teacher, author, and natural philosopher — was the Earl of Shelburne's librarian and tutor to his sons. In this room, then a working laboratory, Priestley pursued his investigations of gases. On 1 August 1774 he discovered oxygen. Twenty years later he emigrated to America where he continued his research at his home and laboratory in Northumberland, Pennsylvania.

Acknowledgments: Adapted for the internet from “The Joseph Priestley House,” produced by the National Historic Chemical Landmarks program of the American Chemical Society in 1994 and “Bowood House,” produced by the National Historic Chemical Landmarks program of the American Chemical Society and the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2000. Back to top Cite this Page American Chemical Society International Historic Chemical Landmarks. Discovery of Oxygen by Joseph Priestley. (accessed Month Day, Year). The Discovery of Oxygen The Discovery of Oxygen Zuse Konrad Who Discovered Oxygen? Everyone needs oxygen to survive � man and animals alike. Furthermore, oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe and makes up nearly 21% of the earth's atmosphere. Oxygen accounts for nearly half of the mass of the earth's crust, two thirds of the mass of the human body and nine tenths of the mass of water. In this page we will try to outline the path to the discovery of this important substance. Oxygen was discovered for the first time by a Swedish Chemist, Carl Wilhelm Scheele , in 1772.

Joseph Priestly , an English chemist, independently, discovered oxygen in 1774 and published his findings the same year, three years before Scheele published. Antoine Lavoisier , a French chemist, also discovered oxygen in 1775, was the first to recognize it as an element, and coined its name "oxygen" - which comes from a Greek word that means �acid-former�. There is a historic dispute about who discovered oxygen. Most credit Priestly alone or Both Priestly and Scheele. To learn more about this dispute go to the link section, at the bottom of this page. Famous Experiments Oxygen from Minerals In 1772, Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered that red-hot manganese oxide produces a gas. He called the gas "fire air" because of the brilliant sparks it produced when it came in contact with hot charcoal dust. He repeated this experiment by heating potassium nitrate, mercury oxide, and many other materials and produced the same gas. He collected the gas in pure form using a small bag. He explained the properties of �fire air� using the phlogiston theory, which was soon discredited by Lavoisier.

He carefully recorded his experiments in his notes, but waited several years before publishing them. In 1774, Priestley repeated Scheele�s experiments using a 12-inch-wide glass "burning lens", he focused sunlight on a lump of reddish mercuric oxide in an inverted glass container. The gas emitted, he found, was "five or six times as good as common air." (1) In succeeding tests, it caused a flame to burn intensely and kept a mouse alive about four times as long as a similar quantity of air. Priestley, a big supporter of the phlogiston theory, called his discovery "dephlogisticated air" on the theory that it supported combustion so well because it had no phlogiston in it, and hence could absorb the maximum amount during burning. Repeat Scheele�s and Priestley experiments: Warning: Heating up materials and breathing vapors could be very dangerous. As a rule: this experiment should be performed under the supervision of teachers or adults familiar with safety procedures. Consult your teacher or other knowledgeable adults and experts about how to obtain the mentioned materials and how to use them properly and safely in this experiment. Do not do this experiment alone! Consult the link section and further resources provided.

Ensure that you understand the basic principals. Surf the web and consult your local library, your teacher and other knowledgeable adults and experts. Oxygen from Plants In August of 1771, Joseph Priestley , put a sprig of mint into a transparent closed space with a candle that burned out the air until it soon went out. After 27 days, he relit the extinguished candle again and it burned perfectly well in the air that previously would not support it. And how did Priestley light the candle if it was placed in a closed space? He focused sun light beams with a mirror onto the candle wick (Priestley had no bright source of light, and had to rely on the sun). Today, of course, we can use more sophisticated methods to light the candle like focusing light from a flood light through converging lens, or by an electrical spark. So priestly proved that plants somehow change the composition of the air. In another celebrated Experiment from 1772, Priestley kept a mouse in a jar of air until it collapsed. He found that a mouse kept with a plant would survive. However, we do not recommend to repeat this experiment and hurt innocent animals.

These kinds of observations led Priestley to offer an interesting hypothesis that plants restore to the air whatever breathing animals and burning candles remove - what was later coined by Lavoisier "oxygen". In these experiments, Priestly was the first to observe that plants release oxygen into the air - the process known to us as photosynthesis . Repeat Joseph Priestley's Experiments: Oxygen - Element information, properties and uses | Periodic Table Chemistry in its element: oxygen (Promo) You're listening to Chemistry in its element brought to you by Chemistry World, the magazine of the Royal Society of Chemistry. (End promo) Chris Smith Hello! And welcome to Chemistry in its element, where we take a look at the stories behind the elements that make up the world around us. I'm Chris Smith. This week, we are continuing our tour of the periodic table with a lung full of a gas that we can't do without. It protects us from solar radiation, it keeps us alive and by helping things to burn, it also keeps us warm. It is of course oxygen. And to tell its story, here's Mark Peplow.

Mark Peplow Little did those humble cyanobacteria realize what they were doing when two and a half billion years ago, they started to build up their own reserves of energy-rich chemicals, by combining water and carbon dioxide. Powered by sunlight, they spent the next two billion years terraforming our entire planet with the waste products of their photosynthesis, a rather toxic gas called oxygen. In fact, those industrious bugs are ultimately responsible for the diversity of life, we see around us today. Oxygen accounts for about 23% of the atmosphere's mass with pairs of oxygen atoms stuck together to make dioxygen molecules, but it's not just in the air, we breathe. Overall, it's the most abundant element on the earth's surface and the third most abundant in the universe after hydrogen and helium. Our planet's rocks are about 46% oxygen by weight, much of it in the form of silicon dioxide, which we know most commonly as sand.

And many of the metals we mine from the Earth's crust are also found as their oxides, aluminium in bauxite or iron in hematite, while carbonates such as limestone are also largely made of oxygen and the oceans are of course about 86% oxygen, connected to hydrogen as good old H2O, just about the most perfect solvent you can imagine for biochemistry. Oxygen is also in virtually every molecule in your body including fats, carbohydrates and DNA. In particular, it's the atom that links together the phosphate groups in the energy-carrying molecule ATP. Oxygen is obviously pretty useful for keeping us going, but is also widely used in industry as an oxidant, where it can give up some of that solar energy captured by plant and those cyanobacteria. A stream of oxygen can push the temperature of a blast furnace over 2000 degrees and it allows an oxyacetylene torch to cut straight through metal. The space shuttle is carried into space on an incredible force produced when liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen combine to make water. So who first noticed this ubiquitous stuff?

There's certainly some debate about who first identified oxygen as an element, partly because at the time the precise definition of an element still hadn't really been pinned down. English chemist, Joseph Priestley certainly isolated oxygen gas in the 1770s, although he tried to define it as dephlogisticated air. Phlogiston was then thought to be some kind of primordial substance that was the root cause of combustion. Swedish chemist, Carl Wilhelm Scheele was a fan of phlogiston too and probably discovered oxygen before Priestly did. But it was Antoine Lavoisier, sometimes called the father of modern chemistry, who was the first to truly identify oxygen as an element and in doing so, he really helped to firm up the definition that an element is something that cannot be broken down by any kind of chemical analysis. This also helped him to kill off the phlogiston theory, which was a crucial step in the evolution of chemistry. Oxygen isn't only about the dioxygen molecules that sustain us. There is another form, trioxygen, also known as ozone and it's also pretty important in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, is responsible for filtering out harmful ultraviolet rays, but unfortunately, ozone is also pretty toxic.

So it's bad news that tons of the gas are produced by the reactions between hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides churned out by cars every day. If only we could transplant the stuff, straight up into the stratosphere! Now ozone is normally spread so thinly in the air, that you can't see its pale blue colour and oxygen gas is colourless unless you liquefy it, but there is one place where you can see the gas in all its glory. The aurora or polar lights, where particles from the solar wind slam into oxygen molecules in the upper atmosphere to produce the swirling green and red colours that have entranced humans for millennia. Chris Smith So why life is a gas, that was Mark Peplow revealing the secrets of the element that we can't live without. Next time on Chemistry in its element, Johnny Ball joins us to tell the story of a chemical that's craved by Olympic athletes, makes good hi-five connectors and is also a favourite for fillings. And that's in teeth, not pies.

Johnny Ball Today one gram can be beaten into a square meter sheet just 230 atoms thick, one cubic centimetre would make a sheet 18 square meters, 1 gram could be drawn out to make 165 meters of wire just 1/200th of a millimetre thick. The gold colour in Buckingham Palace fence is actually gold; gold covered because it lasts 30 years; whereas gold paint which actually contains no gold at all lasts in tip-top condition only a year or so. Chris Smith So all that glitters isn't gold, but some is, and you can find out why on next week's Chemistry in its element. I'm Chris Smith, thanks for listening. See you next time. (Promo) Chemistry in its element is brought to you by the Royal Society of Chemistry and produced by thenakedscientists.com . There's more information and other episodes of Chemistry in its element on our website at chemistryworld.org/elements .

(End promo) Oxygen and One God: Joseph Priestley in 1774 | History Today Oxygen and One God: Joseph Priestley in 1774 Early Modern (16th-18thC) Science & Technology The discoverer of oxygen - a man of ‘singular energy and varied abilities’ - was, writes A.D. Orange, also a bold progressive thinker. On Monday, August 1st, 1774, in his laboratory in the country mansion of Lord Shelburne at Bowood, near Caine, Joseph Priestley - the Rev Dr Joseph Priestley, Fellow of the Royal Society - heated red mercuric oxide and obtained the previously unknown gas, oxygen. Nine days later, he added the final touches to a combative metaphysical treatise usually known as An Examination of the Scotch Philosophers. Before the end of the month, he had left the rural fastness of Wiltshire in the company of Shelburne for a tour of Belgium, Holland, Germany and France which was to bring him face to face with Lavoisier and the Parisian scientists, and to cast him in the role of defender of the Christian faith against the scepticism of the French intellectuals.

At every stage Priestley confronts the historian with paradox. He did, indeed, discover oxygen - he discovered it twice and neither time quite understood what he had done. He argued vigorously for the doctrine of philosophical necessity - and equally vigorously for political and religious liberty. He defended the Christian gospel at table with the philosophes - and in his own country was counted a dangerous heretic, if not an atheist. Want the full article and website archive access? Already a member? Log in now Oxygen»historical information [WebElements Periodic Table] Oxygen: historical information Oxygen: historical information Oxygen was discovered by Joseph Priestley, Carl Scheele at 1774 in England, Sweden. Origin of name : from the Greek words "oxy genes" meaning "acid" (sharp) and "forming" (acid former) Leonardo da Vinci suggested that air consists of at least two different gases. Before then, air was felt to be an element in its own right. He was also aware that one of these gases supported both flames and life. Oxygen was prepared by several workers before 1772 but these workers did not recognise it as an element.

Joseph Priestley is generally credited with its discovery (who made oxygen by heating lead or mercury oxides), but Carl Wilhelm Scheele also reported it independently. The behaviour of oxygen and nitrogen as components of air led to the advancement of the phlogiston theory of combustion, which influenced chemists for a century or so, and which delayed an understanding of the nature of air for many years. Sometime prior to the autumn of 1803, the Englishman John Dalton was able to explain the results of some of his studies by assuming that matter is composed of atoms and that all samples of any given compound consist of the same combination of these atoms. Dalton also noted that in series of compounds, the ratios of the masses of the second element that combine with a given weight of the first element can be reduced to small whole numbers (the law of multiple proportions). This was further evidence for atoms. Dalton's theory of atoms was published by Thomas Thomson in the 3rd edition of his System of Chemistry in 1807 and in a paper about strontium oxalates published in the Philosophical Transactions. Dalton published these ideas himself in the following year in the New System of Chemical Philosophy.

The symbol used by Dalton for oxygen is shown below. [See History of Chemistry, Sir Edward Thorpe, volume 1, Watts & Co, London, 1914.] WebElements chemistry shop You can buy periodic table posters, mugs, T-shirts, periodic table fridge magnets, games, molecular models, and more at the WebElements periodic table shop The periodic table/Oxygen - Wikiversity The periodic table/Oxygen Completion status : this resource is considered to be ready for use . Resource type : this resource is an article. Discovery[ edit ] Oxygen was discovered in 1774 by Joseph Priestley in Wiltshire, England, and independently by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in Uppsala, Sweden. The name is derived from the Greek, 'oxy genes' meaning acid forming. The credit for discovering oxygen is shared by three chemists: an Englishman, a Swede, and a Frenchman. Joseph Priestley was the first to publish an account of oxygen, having made it in 1774 by focusing sunlight on to mercuric oxide (HgO), and collecting the gas which came off. Unknown to Priestly, Carl Wilhelm Scheele had produced oxygen in June 1771.

He had written an account of his discovery but it was not published until 1777. Antoine Lavoisier also claimed to have discovered oxygen, and he proposed that the new gas be called oxy-gène, meaning acid-forming, because he thought it was the basis of all acids. Uses[ edit ] Industrially, oxygen is produced on a large scale from liquid air by liquefaction and fractional distillation. In the laboratory it can be prepared by the electrolysis of water or by adding manganese(IV) oxide as a catalyst to aqueous hydrogen peroxide. Oxygen is very reactive and capable of combining with most other elements. It is a component of thousands of organic compounds, and is essential for the aerobic respiration of all plants and animals and for almost all combustion. The greatest commercial use of gaseous oxygen is in the steel industry. Large quantities are also used in the manufacture of epoxyethane, nitric acid, hydrogen peroxide and chloroethene, the precursor to PVC and for oxy-acetylene welding and cutting of metals. A growing use is in the treatment of sewage and of effluent from industry. Oxygen gas is fairly soluble in water, which makes aerobic life in rivers, lakes and oceans possible.

Oxygen first appeared as a constituent of Earth's atmosphere around 2 billion years ago, when sufficient oxygen from the photosynthesis of blue-green algae had accumulated. In this process energy from the Sun splits water into oxygen, which passes into the atmosphere, and hydrogen, which joins with carbon dioxide to produce biomass. When living things need energy they take in oxygen so that it can react in their cells with the biomass absorbed by digestion of food; they then return that oxygen to the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. We, for example, breathe in oxygen so that it can react with the fuel (food) in our bodies allowing the transfer of energy for our cells that keeps us alive, active and warm. We breathe out the carbon dioxide that forms. Oxygen, as a gaseous element, forms 21% of the atmosphere by volume. The element and its compounds make up 49.2%, by mass of the Earth’s crust, about two-thirds of the human body and nine-tenths of water.

Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen - Aug 01, 1774 - HISTORY.com Joseph Priestley discovers oxygen Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1774, dissenting British minister Joseph Priestly, author of Observations on Civil Liberty and the Nature and Justice of the War with America, discovers oxygen while serving as a tutor to the sons of American sympathizer William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne, at Bowood House in Wiltshire, England. Joseph Priestley shared the liberal religious and political philosophy of many of America’s revolutionary leaders, including Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, all of whom became his friends and correspondents. Priestley first met Franklin while both were living in London during the 1760s. Both were Renaissance men with established reputations as scientists and political philosophers and they embarked on an enduring friendship. In 1774, Franklin and Priestley attended the first Unitarian sermon given at the first Unitarian church founded in London. Unitarianism evolved out of a dissenting Christian tradition that denied the concept of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ. Unitarians instead believed that God was one being and that Christ was a human spokesman of God’s truth.

Priestley had been born into a dissenting (non-Anglican Protestant) family and gradually found his way to Unitarianism by the early 1760s. Franklin’s views were very similar and sympathetic to Unitarians, but he never joined a Unitarian congregation. Although still living in England, Priestley endorsed both the American and French revolutions, authoring pamphlets in support of each. On the second anniversary of Bastille Day, a mob in Birmingham, England, burned Priestley’s home, including his first-class scientific laboratory and the Unitarian church where he preached. As a result of the attack, he decided that he could no longer live in England and immigrated to the United States in 1794. Priestley settled in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, where he lived until his death in 1804. While there, Priestley established the first Unitarian church in Philadelphia, where then-Vice President John Adams attended his sermons. Related Videos General Chemistry Online: FAQ: History of chemistry: When did Antoine Lavoisier discover oxygen? Next Question When did Antoine Lavoisier discover oxygen? Antoine Lavoisier was never credited with the discovery of any element.

Nor does he deserve that honor. The dates and events surrounding the discovery of oxygen offer the following blunt reminders to anyone seeking a place in scientific posterity: Document and date your work. Recognize the importance of your discovery. Interpret your work correctly and thoroughly, or you may not receive credit for it. Tell someone what you've done. Tell the community, not just a colleague. Acknowledge your competitors. 1771-1772 Carl Wilhelm Scheele discovered that red-hot manganese oxide (MnO2) produces a gas. He called the gas "fire air" because of the brilliant sparks it produced when it came in contact with hot charcoal dust. He recognized that heating mercuric oxide produced the same gas. The reaction is now known to be 2 HgO(s) 2 Hg( ) + O2(g) He collected the gas in pure form using a small bag. He explained the properties of fire air using the phlogiston theory, which was soon discredited by Lavoisier. He carefully recorded the experiment in his notes, but waited several years before publishing them.

April, 1774 Pharmacist Pierre Bayen discovers that heating mercury oxides resulted in a discharge of gas and a loss of mass. He collected the gas, and noted that it was slightly denser than air. Bayen was timid about publishing anything but direct observations. He did not interpret his results and he did not examine the gas further. Had he done so, he would have realized that the gas he had collected was not ordinary air. He realized his mistake after Lavoisier published his work, and tried to lay claim to the discovery, but he was too late. He has been forgotten by history. August 1, 1774 Joseph Priestley independently repeats the production of oxygen from mercuric oxide in his laboratory at Lord Shelburne's country mansion near Calne, England. He wrote, "What surprised me more than I can well express, was that a candle burned in this air with a remarkably vigorous flame..." Priestley carefully documented his work, recognized the significance of what he had done, and published his results promptly. Posterity gives Priestley credit for the discovery of oxygen. September 16, 1774 Lavoisier observes that heating mercuric oxide produces metallic mercury.

He thought the reaction might have been caused by contact with iron; he made no note of gas evolution in his notebook. October 15, 1774 Lavoisier received a letter from Scheele that carefully described the preparation of "fire air" by heating silver carbonate. Lavoisier never answered the letter. October 1774 Priestley visits Lavoisier in Paris and discussed his experiments with the decomposition of mercuric oxide over dinner. In 1800, he recalled that dinner at Lavoisier's house: Having made the discovery some time before I was in Paris, in the year 1774, I mentioned it at the table of Mr. Lavoisier, when most of the philosophical people of the city were present, saying that it was a kind of air in which a candle burned much better than in common air, but that I had not then given it a name. At this, all the company, and Mr. and Mrs. Lavoisier as much as any, expressed great surprise. March 8, 1775 Priestley demonstrates that sealed containers of the new gas can support life longer than atmospheric air.

He called the gas "dephlogisticated air", using terminology and ideas from the soon-to-be-discredited phlogiston theory to explain his observations. He tried breathing the gas himself, and reported that he felt "peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that, in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury." April, 1775 Lavoisier announced to the Academy of Science in Paris that he had isolated a component of air that he called "eminently breathable air" by decomposition of mercuric oxide. (Carmen Giunta has published Lavoisier's paper in his collection of classic papers from the history of chemistry. Giunta highlights changes in the paper between 1775 and its actual publication date in 1778.) 1777 Scheele reports his preparation of oxygen in his Treatise on Fire and Air. He was aware of Priestley's and Lavoisier's claims, but he did not make any claim of his own.

Lavoisier biographer Jean-Pierre Poirier describes Scheele as "self-effacing" and speculates that Scheele did not want to be accused of plagiarism- even though the discovery was rightly his! Scheele does receive parenthetical credit today. 1789 In his Traité Élémentaire de Chimie, Lavoisier describes the preparation of oxygen in detail by heating the red oxide of mercury. Lavoisier refers to oxygen as "this air, which Mr. Priestley, Mr. Scheele, and I discovered about the same time" [ Partington ]. Priestley denounced Lavoisier's claim in his book Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air, saying that Lavoisier had borrowed his idea for preparing oxygen from mercuric oxide, and had not clearly realized at the time that oxides contained only a component of atmospheric air, not atmospheric air in whole. Lavoisier's attempt to wrestle credit for the discovery from Priestley was witnessed by his colleague Edmond Genet [ Poirier ]: I also had the advantage during my stay at Birmingham of becoming acquainted with Dr.

Priestley who had the kindness to repeat for my gratification his most interesting experiments on air and gases of which I sent an account to the Academy of Paris. At that time, Lavoisier was pursuing the same subject, and I was surprised on my return to hear him read a memorial at one of the sittings of the Academy which was simply a repetition in different words of Priestley's experiments which I had reported. He laughed, and said to me, "My friend, you know that those who start the hare do not always catch it." References What Country Was Oxygen Discovered? What Country Was Oxygen Discovered? 1 Answer 0 Oxygen was discovered by Carl Wilhelm Scheele in Sweden in 1771. Joseph Priestley, An Englishman by birth who later migrated to America, made further discoveries in 1774. It was named by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier in 1774. uk.ask.com Is this page helpful to you? Your anonymous feedback will help us improve. Not the answer you're looking for? Try asking your own question . Please flag with care: What's wrong with this link? If there's a problem with the answer itself, please flag the answer instead.

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Question: Which Englishman discovered oxygen in 1774?
Answer: Joseph Priestley